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Mark Smith

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One ethical or legal code in Idaho that I found interesting was listed in common law section. It deals with a court case, Caldwell v. Idaho Youth Ranch Inc. where the Idaho Supreme Court clarified that the duty to warn applies only when the client has made explicit threats; it does not impose a duty to predict future violence.

Another code that I found interesting discusses expiration of Registered Intern status. Expiration. An individual may not practice as an intern for more than four (4) years from the original date of registration, unless good cause is demonstrated to the board.

Prior to reading through the codes, I would not have imagined that there would be an expiration point on Registered Intern status. After thinking about it, it does make sense that there would be a time frame

Steve Chigas

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After reviewing the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) code of ethics, there were some ethical codes that stood out to me as being important the first one being 1.3 Multiple relationships, this particular code stands out to me as it talks about how the counselor should try to avoid having multiple relationships when working with families or couples. Depending on where you live and practice this could be a challenge especially if you live in a small town and you or your family is active in the community. You can unknowingly be counseling the parents of your child's best friend which could cause an ethical problem if confidentiality was breached but as in all counseling situations, you should always stay away from people you or any family member knows on a personal level, especially if you see them out of the therapeutic setting.

The second one that stood out to me was maintaining professional competency and integrity mainly sections 3.1 Maintaining competency and 3.3 seeking assistance, both of these sections go hand and hand as when working with families and couples you need to make sure that you are up to date on all of the latest trends and techniques and if you are unsure about a situation and your judgment is impeded then asking for help can only help you and the client rather than guessing at what to do and possibly causing unintentional harm to the clients.

Reference:

 AAMFT.(American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy) (2015). Code Of Ethics. https://aamft.org/Legal_Ethics/Code_of_Ethics.aspx

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